Real-time conversations between conversation participants via their computer systems are becoming increasingly common. Such real-time conversations require that the participants be present at their computer systems (e.g., personal digital assistants) and able to respond when a communication is received. A common form of real-time conversation is provided by instant messaging services. An instant messaging service allows participants to send messages and have them received within a second or two by the other participants in the conversation. The receiving participants can then send responsive messages to the other participants in a similar manner. To be effective, a real-time conversation relies on the participants' becoming aware of, reviewing, and responding to received messages very quickly. This quick response is in contrast to conventional electronic mail systems in which the recipients of electronic mail messages respond to messages at their convenience.
When an initiating participant wants to start a real-time conversation, that participant needs to know whether the intended participants are available to respond in real time to a message. If not, then communications via conventional electronic mail, voice mail, or some other mechanism may be more appropriate. For example, if the computers of the intended participants are currently powered off, then a real-time conversation is not possible. Moreover, if their computers are currently powered on, but the intended participants are away from their computers, a real-time conversation is also not possible. The initiating participant would like to know the availability of the intended participants so that an appropriate decision on the form of communication can be made.
The availability status of an entity such as a computer system or a user associated with that computer system is referred to as “presence information.” Presence information identifies the current “presence state” of the user. Users make their presence information available so that other users can decide how best to communicate with them. For example, the presence information may indicate whether a user is logged on (“online”) with an instant messaging server or is logged off (“offline”). Presence information may also provide more detailed information about the availability of the user. For example, even though a user is online, that user may be away from their computer in a meeting. In such a case, the presence state may indicate “online” and “in a meeting.”
In an instant messaging context, a publishing user (“publisher”) may provide their presence information to a presence server that then provides the presence information to subscribing users (“subscribers”). Thus, a presence server may use a subscriber/publisher model to provide the presence information for the users of the presence service. Whenever the presence information of a user changes, the presence server is notified of the change by that user's computer system and in turn notifies the subscribing users of the change. A subscribing user can then decide whether to initiate an instant messaging conversation based on the presence information of the intended participants. For example, if the presence information indicates that a publishing user is currently in a conference telephone call, then the subscribing user may decide to send an instant message, rather than place a telephone call, to the publishing user. If the subscribing user, however, needs to call and speak with the publishing user, the subscribing user needs to monitor the presence information of the publishing user to know when the call can be placed. When the subscribing user notices that the publishing user's presence information indicates that the telephone conference has been concluded, then the subscribing user can then place the telephone call.
Typical presence systems and/or instant messaging systems may allow a user to maintain a list of contacts to whom the user may subscribe to presence information or may send instant messages. The systems, referred to generically as a contact server, may store for each contact a display name of the contact along with the contact's real-time identifier, such as a Session Initiation Protocol (“SIP”) Uniform Resource Identifier (“URI”). The real-time identifier is a unique identification of the contact that can be mapped to the current location of the contact using SIP. When a user wants to send an instant message to a contact, a client-side component of the instant messaging system may download the contact list from the contact server. The client-side component allows the user to select the contact with whom the user wants to initiate the instant messaging session. The client-side component may also allow the user to maintain the list of contacts (i.e., “real-time contact list”) by adding new contacts, updating existing contacts, and so on.
Many different systems may be used by a user to maintain information about contacts for the user. For example, the user may use electronic mail systems, cellular phones, personal digital assistants, customer relationship management systems, operating systems, and so on to maintain contact information about the user's contacts. Electronic mail systems may allow a user to maintain a personal address book that includes entries for contacts that contain the name, electronic mail address, postal address, telephone number, real-time identifier, and so on of the contact In addition, electronic mail systems may allow an enterprise to maintain a global address list that contains entries for each person associated with the organization. Some electronic mail systems may maintain replicated copies of their contact information. For example, a personal digital assistant may contain a duplicate copy of the contact information that is also stored on an electronic mail server. From time-to-time, the contact information of the personal digital assistant needs to be synchronized with that of the server. In addition, some electronic mail systems allow users to input contact information from electronic business cards rather than requiring a user to manually input the contact information.
Because contact information can be maintained by many different contact sources, it can be difficult for a user to locate contact information for a contact. When a user wants to communicate with a contact, the user needs to remember in which contact source the contact information for that contact is stored. For example, the user may store telephone numbers of some contacts in a cellular phone and may store contact information of other contacts using an electronic mail system. In such a case, the user may first use the electronic mail system to see if it contains the contact information for a certain contact. If not, the user may next use their cellular phone to see if it contains the contact information. The user may repeat this process of checking contact sources until the contact information for the contact is located. Moreover, once a user locates the contact information, assuming it is not already in the real-time contact list of the contact server, the user would need to manually add the contact information to the real-time contact list before a real-time conversation can be initiated.
It would be desirable to have a system that would somehow allow a user to have a user interface through which the user can access the contact information from different contact sources, easily locate contact information of a contact of interest regardless of the contact source, and easily add contact information to the real-time contact list to enable real-time conversations.